Wasp controls the mind of a cockroach

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An amazing fact of nature. I wouldn't be surprised if creationists start using this.
As an adult, Ampulex compressa seems like your normal wasp, buzzing about and mating. But things get weird when it's time for a female to lay an egg. She finds a cockroach to make her egg's host, and proceeds to deliver two precise stings.

[...]

From the outside, the effect is surreal. The wasp does not paralyze the cockroach. In fact, the roach is able to lift up its front legs again and walk. But now it cannot move of its own accord. The wasp takes hold of one of the roach's antennae and leads it [...] like a dog on a leash.
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Source: http://loom.corante.com/archives/2006/02/02/the_wisdom_of_parasites.php

PubMed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/..._uids=16304619&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_docsum

Of course there is an evolution/ID discussion at the bottom :xrolleyes
 
Wicked cool. Did they do a full analysis on the wasp's venom, I wonder? Richard Dawkins wrote a book on this sort of thing: The Extended Phenotype.
 
This effect can be seen every day in human life.

We have the cockroaches (politicians) being led around by the wasps (big business).

Nothing unusual here!
 
This is pretty cool. I believe there are lots of similarly amazing relationships though... I seem to remember reading about a parasite whose life-cycle includes periods inside both rats and cats... when inside a rat, and at the right time in its life-cycle, it causes the rat to lose its fear of open spaces, thus giving it a much better chance of finding its way into a cat.

I think this sort of thing actually has a much wider application for evolutionary theory. The more I learn about it, the more it seems that no matter how arbitrarily incredible a scenario one can dream up based on evolutionary theory, it will already have happened. It means the world is quite a good laboratory - for any hypothesis "if evolutionary theory is true, scenario X could occur", there's a good chance that scenario X has already occurred.

Hmmm. It's late. :)
 
Crispy Duck said:
This is pretty cool.
I think this sort of thing actually has a much wider application for evolutionary theory. The more I learn about it, the more it seems that no matter how arbitrarily incredible a scenario one can dream up based on evolutionary theory, it will already have happened.
:)
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Indeed.
Over and over again, most likely.
The trouble is that most people truly can't fit that fact inside their heads any more than I can fit imaginary numbers in mine.

The difference is, I know it's me that's wrong.:(
 
It’s a favorite tool of parasites that influence the behavior of their hosts in weirdly specific ways.

More reading, if interested:
lancet fluke
... the flukes undulate through the ant's fluids, most form cysts in the abdomen, but some home in on the nerve clusters that control the mandibles in the ants head.

The temperature drops into the coolness of evening, and the infected ant feels compelled to leave its brethren, forsaking them to climb a grass stalk spire to its apex - the pastures emergent canopy. Preparing to make itself a sacrifice, it anchors itself to the flimsy blade, attached firmly by its mandibles.

It waits motionless throughout the night to be devoured by the primary host, the cow....
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Nematomorph hairworm
The parasitic Nematomorph hairworm (Spinochordodes tellinii) develops inside land-dwelling grasshoppers and crickets until the time comes for the worm to transform into an aquatic adult. Somehow mature hairworms brainwash their hosts into behaving in way they never usually would – causing them to seek out and plunge into water.

Once in the water the mature hairworms – which are three to four times longer that their hosts when extended – emerge and swim away to find a mate, leaving their host dead or dying in the water.
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Big deal. Women do the same thing to guys all the time.


Well, ok - not by the antenae.
 
I'm sure there's also a barnacle that takes over the mind of a crab. Interesting things barnacles.
 
There has been some research into the effect of Toxoplasma on humans which shows there may be a link between being infected and having schizophrenia.

Link

There's plenty left to do to turn these results into a full-blown explanation of parasites and personalities. For example, what is Toxoplasma releasing into brains to manipulate its hosts? And how does that substance give rise to schizophrenia in some humans? And even if the hypothesis does hold up, it would only account for some cases of schizophrenia, while the cause of others would remain undiscovered. But still...the idea that parasites are tinkering with humanity's personality--perhaps even giving rise to cultural diversity--is taking over my head like a bad case of Toxoplasma.
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I can't help but wonder if the fact that Egypt had one of the largest, most powerful, and longest-lasting civilizations of the ancient world had anything to do with the fact that they loved cats.
 
Yes, but

NoZed Avenger said:
Big deal. Women do the same thing to guys all the time.


Well, ok - not by the antenae.
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although some women may lead some men around by some appendage...I don't think there is any venom injected into the brain. I think testosterone is the brain chemical which leads to uncontrollable behavior...and men make that stuff all by themselves.
 
Crispy Duck said:
This is pretty cool. I believe there are lots of similarly amazing relationships though... I seem to remember reading about a parasite whose life-cycle includes periods inside both rats and cats... when inside a rat, and at the right time in its life-cycle, it causes the rat to lose its fear of open spaces, thus giving it a much better chance of finding its way into a cat.

I think this sort of thing actually has a much wider application for evolutionary theory. The more I learn about it, the more it seems that no matter how arbitrarily incredible a scenario one can dream up based on evolutionary theory, it will already have happened. It means the world is quite a good laboratory - for any hypothesis "if evolutionary theory is true, scenario X could occur", there's a good chance that scenario X has already occurred.

Hmmm. It's late. :)
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Toxoplasmo... something. I was telling my boyfriend about them yesterday since I had read about it on the Straight Dope and was fascinated.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/060127.html
 
Ryan O'Dine said:
It’s a favorite tool of parasites that influence the behavior of their hosts in weirdly specific ways.

More reading, if interested:
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You wouldn't happen to know, also, the name of that fish parasite that attaches to the tongue of a fish and slowly replaces it, whereupon it acts as the tongue? I have a vague recollection of it looking somewhat like a small white Isopoda with beady, red eyes, but that might be something else. The creature has always fascinated me, though. Or at least ever since I first learned about it.
 
Kotatsu said:
You wouldn't happen to know, also, the name of that fish parasite that attaches to the tongue of a fish and slowly replaces it, whereupon it acts as the tongue? I have a vague recollection of it looking somewhat like a small white Isopoda with beady, red eyes, but that might be something else. The creature has always fascinated me, though. Or at least ever since I first learned about it.
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Cymothoa exigua
 
ohms said:
There has been some research into the effect of Toxoplasma on humans which shows there may be a link between being infected and having schizophrenia.
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We had a fearful fight about this with Xanta last year. Finally proof that cats are controlling us.

I've got a lot of reservations about some of the research in this category. They may get something to hang together, but in the mean time I think there's been a lot of sensationalising over some relatively tenuous connections.

Once they start going on about "low superego strength", "sizothymia" and "afectothymia", I'm afraid my brain seizes up.

Link.

Rolfe.
 
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